Traditional telephone systems enable users to pause their conversations and continue at a later time frame. Commonly referred to as holding, this feature enables users to engage in alternate activities during a call. An advancement to simple call holding, call parking enables users to hold a conversation at one phone and continue the conversation in another.
Traditional call holding systems also employ call parking services to manage conversation transfers. Users can activate the call parking feature during a conversation by pressing a button or a special sequence of buttons reserved for call parking. The telephone conversation is then transferred to an unused extension number while holding the conversation. In such traditional call park services, potential of unintended call retrieval is prevalent. A misdialed extension may pick up another party's conversation on hold. Such errors may lead to interruptions and waste of time and effort in reestablishing progress made during conversations.
Some incomplete solutions to such issues utilize large pools of call park extensions that are assigned to individual user. However, large pools do not guarantee a parked call from being accidentally retrieved by a third-party. Lack of coordination among users inherent in legacy call park and retrieval systems permit conversation interruptions and may impede progress during communications.